April 12, 2004-Last year an employee of
IBEC-the Irish employer's representative organization- questioned the
need for so many statutory protections of workers' rights when the
modern company has an enlightened approach in the human resources area.
IBEC's membership largely comprises companies where the CEO is an
employee like everyone else and in the case of foreign-owned companies ,
the Human Resources function head at head office may well have the last
say on issues in dispute. In family run and entrepreneurial businesses
when the top manager is a bully, there is need for the restraint which
statutory protections induce. This is particularly important when the
jobs market is not good and a manager has the sense that an employee has
little choice of alternative employment.

Multinational
companies are not of course immune from bullying and harassment. In
recent years there have been cases in the City of London where banks
were found guilty of harassment against female employees and in July
2003 a US. brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald was found guilty of bullying by
the UK High Court. Steven Horkulak
had claimed that Lee Amaitis, the president of the brokerage firm, had
hysterically screamed obscenities at him on a regular basis over six
months until he was dismissed in June 2000. The 39-year-old had told the
Court that his boss threatened to "fucking break him in two"
and "rip [his] head off". Horkulak was awarded £912,000
damages, plus interest and costs which will take it close to £1m.
Later, Justice Brenda Hale, refused to give the
U.S. firm permission to appeal. Justice
Hale said the judgement made clear that an employer could not make it
impossible for somebody to do his job and then say that that employee
had not been dismissed. "He (the employer) is not able to sack
somebody by the back door and avoid the consequences," she said.
Amaitis had presented a different image when Prince Charles had
visited the London offices in the aftermath of the destruction of the
World Trade Center when Cantor Fitzgerald had lost up to 700 employees.
Amaitas told the prince his staff had been "heroes - everyone of
them" as he showed him round the offices.

Employment rights are
human rights and this week the UK Institute of Public Policy Research
will publish a report which recommends that the U.K government should
strengthen human rights rules and hold offenders to account. The
Institute says globalisation and the influence of international
companies make a voluntary approach outdated. Although, I've had
experience myself of a Swedish multinational which allowed subsidiaries
to engage in bribery as long as the head office wasn't informed about
it, workers in the developing world where employment rights are often
non-existent, are lucky if they can get employment in such companies.
When the Irish provided the bulk of the UK construction industry
workforce in the 1950's, it's said that Irish foremen were unpopular
with their fellow countrymen because they were often brutish and
ignorant. It was a case of the beggar on horseback riding to the devil.
It's a similar situation in poor countries today.

The
most high pressure job I've had was as a waiter in the Broadmoor Hotel
in Colorado Springs, Colorado where later on his 40th birthday, George
W. Bush decided to go on the wagon. It surprised me that the kitchen
dispatcher who was a Hungarian immigrant was so liberal with abuse of
the staff who were primarily American. The head chef was a moody
Frenchman and my own baptism of fire occurred when the Spanish table
captain struck his desk with his fist while shouting, 'You sonofabitch! The
wealthy guests who were victims of my faux-pas, apologised for Manuel's
outburst. He was
the type who would frighten a horse from a feed of oats with his
fussiness about the guests but he had a good heart.

Statutory
protections are important as human nature hasn't fundamentally changed
in recent decades. There are many business managers who do not need
these protections as they recognise that a well run company is one where
morale is high and teamwork not intimidation is necessary for long term
success. However, there are people running companies today whose mood
can impact on every aspect of business. In he my first job, the
Managing Director was an ignorant bully and I heard later that the
Financial Controller was so stressed that he regularly got physically
sick before even arriving in the office. Employees need to be protected
against individuals who are control freaks with no regard for the impact
of their mode of operation on others.

The
landmark Irish employment legislation of recent decades has been the
Unfair Dismissals Act of 1977. In common with all rights legislation,
the early years of the Act provided tabloid journalists with much fodder
as there were the inevitable share of frivolous cases along with the
worthy ones. Today it's the Equal Status Act which provides tabloid
journalism with material. In recent months, the Irish Times columnist
Kevin Myers has referred on a number of occasions to the Equality
Authority as the 'Equality Police.' It is easy for a white middle class
male to make an issue of what is termed political correctness. It took
time for the administration of the Unfair Dismissals Act to settle down
and the same also applies to the Equal Status Act. There will always be
a number of bad judgments in the adjudication process provided by rights
legislation but that is not an argument for no such
legislation.